Historical documents unveiled here for the first time reinforce the suspicion that the state was involved in taking Yemeni children from medical and welfare institutions, to adoptive parents • According to one document, an unborn baby was invited - while in his mother's womb • MK Koren: "
Details of the testimony of Sister Tova Schlesinger
Documents obtained by "Israel Today" and revealed here for the first time indicate possible and organized involvement of the establishment in the disappearance of Yemeni children.
This is after in the past year we have revealed here the first evidence of experiments carried out on Yemeni children and their abductions, as well as the theft of the immigrants' property by the Israeli authorities at the time.
The documents now indicate that the Bureau of Welfare and social workers on its behalf were involved in the adoption of children from Yemeni, Eastern and Balkan immigrants.
We even reveal here a document according to which an unborn baby was invited - while in its mother's womb.
In 1959, the police explained the closure of the cases in those years with the following puzzling argument: "The Yemenis used to exchange children."
"The appearance of the children has changed"
The beginning of the story in a document sent in 1951 to the WIZO Nursery in Jerusalem on behalf of the Welfare Bureau, seeking to take three children from their parents on various health or social pretexts;
This is without a court order or other legal explanation.
One of the children, according to the document, has not yet been born.
As for WIZO Tel Aviv, the testimony of caregiver Tova Schlesinger to the Cohen-Kedmi Committee is revealed here for the first time, revealing how the system for adopting children there was conducted.
"None of us can tell you anything about the adoptions made at WIZO, because they hid it from us in an unusual way. There was a room where the social worker took a child she had taken from my ward, to show it to adoptive parents. There were children who did not exactly look European, and there were children. Yemeni. Nobody knew in the ward at WIZO where the children came from. We asked and were not told ... it happened that I took care of a certain child for a while, and one morning when I arrived the child was not. I asked and said he went home or they came to pick him up ... we knew from the beginning that WIZO King George has reported for adoption, "Schlesinger said.
Note how a senior police official at the time explained why a police investigation into the disappearance of at least ten Yemeni children had been closed.
A letter from the National Police Headquarters, August 1959, entitled "Search for children who have disappeared" reads: "We have registered almost identical cases ... so far we have not been able to locate the child in question. In our opinion, the cases are due to irregularities in my home. The patients in the years 1950-1949 for the following reasons: The Yemeni babies who were hospitalized were mostly 'starving' and the treatment in a very short period of time in the hospitals changed their appearance to such an extent that their parents were not chromed at all. "Children and even buy them. It is very possible that the missing children were taken by other Yemeni immigrants. In these circumstances, I do not see any real possibility of advancing the matter by further investigations, which in my opinion will add nothing," concluded the deputy head of the police criminal department.
Document of taking a child from his mother. The reason: divorce
The details have been blacked out
A daycare center that was used for the children of conscripts in Haifa continues to "star" in the documents, which show how hundreds of children - almost all of them from the Eastern community - were transferred by the relief bureau to the treatment institution.
This is an institution where children were supposed to stay at the time of their parents' enlistment in the army, and later return to it.
Inside the institution there was a closed ward of immigrant children, and even there for health or "social" reasons they were not returned to their parents.
Among the reasons mentioned: divorce, "primitive parents", an unknown father or a sick parent.
Where the children were transferred - not specified in these documents.
Moreover, their details were blackened and so was the reason for the adoption.
Others show that the relief bureau seeks to remove certain children from the institution, but it is not written where.
Other documents, signed by the institution's doctor, Dr. Paul Strabowski, indicate that in many cases "the child left the institution in a satisfactory condition", but it was not written where he went. Gut Ben Asher's investigation office was able to locate and voice Dr. Strabowski When he was in a nursing home at the age of 87. The ministry wrote to the Cohen-Kedmi committee: "We were under the impression that in a conversation with us the doctor was reluctant and did not reveal everything he knew."
New last name
Another document first revealed here contains a list of names of children who were admitted to WIZO Tel Aviv in 1955.
The list includes four children who were given the family name "Adopt," something that connects to the testimony of Dr. Strawski, who previously said they were instructed to disrupt family names to obscure the traces returning to the biological parents.
MK Nurit Koren, Chairman of the Special Committee on the Disappearance of Yemeni, Eastern and Balkan Children: "The materials presented to the Cohen-Kedmi Commission of Inquiry prove in black and white that an organized state-sponsored crime involving senior establishment officials, security officials, the Ministry of Welfare , WIZO, AMNA, NAMAT, and more.
This is a major stain in the history of the State of Israel, which has been hidden for years through the bond of silence and precedent of 70 years of precedent.
"As chairman of the committee for the investigation of the disappearance of the children of Yemen, the East and the Balkans, I demand that the conclusions of the Cohen-Kedmi committee be rejected immediately and that the committee headed by me be given investigative powers."
MK Nurit Koren
Avner Farhi, chairman of the Yemeni Children's Organization in Israel, who testified at the committee and was involved in the investigations, added: "The commissions of inquiry have so far ignored the institutional logistical support that assisted in child abductions, and only addressed the individual cases of complaining families.
Of course, with the opening of the archives, you can see the huge gap between what appears in the documents and the conclusions of the committees. "
WIZO responded: "The admission and departure procedures for children from the institutions were handled by state authorities only, as indicated by the documents, and WIZO's part was concerned for their well-being. "Children in the organization's possession are open and accessible to families, and we invite everyone whose family member has stayed in our institutions to contact us for information and we will make everything we have available to him."
The Ministry of Welfare stated: "The ministry cooperates continuously and fully with the inquiry committee. Every document we were asked to examine was examined and a response was submitted to the inquiry committee. The documents that are now published were not forwarded to us for examination and therefore we can not comment on them."
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